When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. OurPrivacy Noticeexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Dublin star Brian Fenton is lukewarm at best about the prospect of playing behind closed doors.

The GAA expressed a “lack of appetite for this type of fixture-scheduling” earlier in the week as a means of running the 2020 Championships and Fenton feels it would be a hard sell to players.

He commented: “I play Gaelic football to hear that roar, to play in front of Hill 16, to play in front of my family and clubmates and Dublin fans.

“It would be funny, it would be certainly difficult.

“At the very start of this, Manchester United were playing in the Europa League and there was babies crying in the stand,” he said, citing the Premier League club’s tie with LASK Linz in Austria in March.

“I think they let about 100 people into it and it just took from the game, I felt. I was watching it at the very start of all this coronavirus so I don’t know would it sell to players. I don’t know.

“I don’t know if there would be the same interest if we were being told it was going to be behind closed doors.

“From a personal point of view, I would certainly prefer to be playing in front of a crowd than nobody at all."

Although the Championship won’t start before October, if at all, Fenton doesn’t believe it’s reasonable to expect the GAA to be able to give straight answers just now.

“I look at things like, they cancelled the Olympics this year. They’re cancelling all these big sporting events and you’re looking at it saying, ‘How can the GAA be the exception?’

“So that was the initial reaction. I know there is a bit of confusion and people were coming out during the week. But what can they do, only base it off the guidelines?

Brian Fenton - pictured here in front of Hill 16 - was speaking at the launch of R.E.S.T, a new mental fitness campaign developed by the GPA and WGPA in partnership with the mental health charity, Pieta

“It’s easy to say they should give us guidance. As a player, of course, you would love that. It’s on or it’s off. Be ready for this date.

“But nobody is in a position to give that information.

"It’s crap obviously not to have a regular Championship as it seems but I wouldn’t blame the GAA for saying ‘it’s on’ or ‘it’s off’.

“They’re basing it off what they’re being told, like we all are.”

Brian Fenton was speaking at the launch of R.E.S.T, an important new mental fitness campaign developed by the GPA and WGPA in partnership with the mental health charity, Pieta. R.E.S.T reminds us all of the importance of Routine, Exercise, Sleep and Talk. Be the champion of your own mental fitness and never underestimate the power of #REST. To find out more or to make a donation to Pieta’s Darkness Into Light Sunrise Appeal visit www.darknessintolight.ie